This study aims at investigating the phonetic similarity of Korean and Japanese vowels, and examining the influence of the similarity and the Length Of Learning (LOL) or Length Of Residence (LOR) on Japanese learners' acquisition of Korean phones. For...
This study aims at investigating the phonetic similarity of Korean and Japanese vowels, and examining the influence of the similarity and the Length Of Learning (LOL) or Length Of Residence (LOR) on Japanese learners' acquisition of Korean phones. For this purpose, the speech of 16 Japanese speakers for Japanese speech data, and the speech of 16 Korean speakers, 16 beginning Japanese learners of Korean, 16 advanced Japanese learners of Korean, and 16 experienced Japanese speakers of Korean for Korean speech data were utilized.
The first chapter of this study is dedicated to expressing the overall goals of the study and to a review of the literature. In the second chapter, the different variables that impact on learning L2 phones are explored, and the theoretical basis is established by analyzing the acoustic features of vowels and by reviewing the methodology of the experimental research of phonetics. The third chapter explores the degree of similarity between Korean and Japanese vowels in terms of acoustic features by performing the speech production test on Korean speakers and Japanese speakers. In the fourth chapter, in order to investigate the influence of the similarity and LOL or LOR on L2 phone acquisition, the speech production of Korean vowels produced by Koreans (Ks), Beginning Japanese learners of Korean (BJs), Advanced Japanese learners of Korean (AJs), and Experienced Japanese speakers of Korean (EJs) is investigated in terms of production and perception. The fifth chapter provides the conclusions and implications of the study.
The findings in assessing the degree of the similarity of the Korean and Japanese vowels are as follows:
First, Korean /i/ and /e/ turned out to display no significant differences in terms of F1 and F2 with their counterparts, Japanese /i/ and /e/, and the distribution of F1 and F2 of Korean /i/ and /e/ completely overlapped with Japanese /i/ and /e/. Accordingly, Korean /i/ and /e/ were believed to "identical."
Second, Korean /a/, /o/, and /□/ displayed a significant difference in either F1 or F2, but showed a great similarity in distribution of F1 and F2 with Japanese /a/, /o/, and /щ/ respectively. Korean /a/, /o/, and /□/, therefore, were categorized as very similar to Japanese vowels.
Third, Korean /u/, which has the counterpart /щ/ in Japanese, showed a significant difference in both F1 and F2, and only half of the distribution overlapped. Thus, Korean /u/ was analyzed as being a moderately similar vowel to Japanese vowels.
Fourth, Korean /Λ/ did not have a close counterpart in Japanese, and was classified as "the least similar vowel."
The major findings regarding Japanese learners' acquisition of Korean depending on the level of similarity and the LOL or LOR are as follows:
First, according to the results of the speech production test, Japanese speakers successfully pronounce like Korean speakers in accuracy by transferring the way they articulate Japanese /i/ and /e/ into producing Korean /i/ and /e/, since Korean /i/ and /e/ are almost identical to Japanese /i/ and /e/ in terms of acoustic features. It seemed the positive transfer took place when L1 and L2 were identical, and there was no room to improve, and length of learning and that of residence had no influence.
In the case of Korean /a/, /o/, and /□/, which presented a high similarity with their counterparts, Japanese /a/, /o/, and /щ/, respectively, Japanese speakers seemed to fail in acquiring the authentic pronunciation, since they transferred Japanese articulation to Korean even though they showed significant differences either in F1 or F2. The length of residence, however, did not seem to influence the production accuracy of Korean /a/, /o/, and /□/.
Korean /u/, which showed a moderate similarity, also was not acquired by Japanese speakers in terms of the height and frontness. The length of learning influenced the acquisition of authentic pronunciation, but distinct improvement through additional experience was not observed.
In the case of Korean /Λ/, Japanese speakers did produce authentic /Λ/ in terms of the height and frontness of tongue. The length of learning seemed to influence acquisition in the beginning, but a noticeable improvement in the long run was not observed with the additional experiencing after completing formal learning.
The acquisition of Korean vowels by Japanese speakers in terms of the sequence of acquisition, learning speed, and ultimate attainment, on the basis of the results of the speech production test and the speech perception test, was analyzed as follows:
First, the higher the similarity between L1 and L2 was, the earlier the vowels were acquired. Korean /i and e/, which were phonetically identical to their Japanese counterparts, were acquired in the very early stage of learning, while Korean /a, o, and □/, which showed a high similarity, displayed the same level of accuracy among Japanese speakers regardless of long additional experience.
Second, the lower the similarity was, the more accelerated the learning process was. Namely, the lower the similarity was, the higher the possibility that the length of learning or that of residence acted as a variable. Korean /Λ/ and /u/, which showed a lower similarity compared to the other vowels, improved depending on the length of learning, while the more similar vowels were not influenced by the length of learning or that of residence.
Third, ultimate competence had a complex relationship not only with the similarity but also with markedness or the types of interlingual differences, while the sequence of acquisition and learning speed had a linear relationship with the degree of similarity. Authentic pronunciation was likely to be attained when the vowels were very similar, especially from a phonological perspective. It was not the Korean /Λ/, which was least similar to Japanese vowels, but the /u/, which showed a higher similarity than /Λ/, that turned out to be the hardest for which to acquire native-like accuracy.
The fact that Korean /u/ was the hardest vowel to acquire seems to be related to the fact that Korean /u/ corresponds to the "split," which was the highest level in the hierarchy of difficulty. In addition, /Λ/, which was least similar, did not reach a native-like level of accuracy, since the learning was slowed down gradually due to the markedness even if the initial learning speed was fast.
In conclusion, the hypothesis of SLM seemed to be partially compatible, since the similarity played a great role in terms of the sequence of acquisition and learning speed as SLM maintains. Not only the degree of similarity, however, but the types of differences and the markedness should be considered in terms of the ultimate attainment to predict the difficulty of L2 phone acquisition, while SLM theorized the difficulty was derived primarily from the interlingual similarity.